The Fight
by JustKissMe
Summary: Jack is upset, Merida is confused, and Hiccup is trying to somehow fix everything. Big Four


Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon, Brave, or Tangled.

AU Background: Set in Merida, Hiccup, and Rapunzel's time period. Jack is the only immortal and is a guardian.

* * *

She had complained about it for about a week now, her seemingly imminent betrothal. And it makes perfect sense as to why; she's got quite a fiery character as well as a spirit that will never be contained. Unfortunately, Merida's parents were trying to do just that; and she was having none of it.

Jack was visiting me when I received the news, and so we flew over to her as fast as we could. Now we're just waiting for Rapunzel to join us, because until she does I don't think Jack and I can calm Merida down on our own. Don't get me wrong, I hated that she was being forced to be married as much as she did, but in order to fix the problem Merida needs to let go of enough rage to help us come up with some type of solution; however, with the state Merida is in right now she has only come up with stupid ideas.

Which leads us to Merida's current stupid plan.

* * *

"I won't go through with this! They can't make me!" Merida spit out as she paced back and forth in front of Jack and I, her vibrant red hair swinging every which way. "They're absolutely horrible, I would be better off without the lot of them. I _hate _them!"

Merida may not have noticed Jack suddenly tense and focus on what she was saying, but I did. Before, he had been spacing out and slouching in his chair, arms folded across his chest with his staff tucked into his elbow. But with the slander Merida has just spout about her family he quite suddenly stiffened, icy blue eyes coming into a sharp focus and narrowing every so slightly. The room dropped some in temperature. Oh Gods, this was getting bad.

Merida continued on, ignorant to the growing tension in the room. "Sometimes I just want to leave this place, so I can live on my own and do what I want."

Jack stood suddenly, hand tightening on his staff. "You don't even realize how lucky you are Merida." This is definitely not leading anywhere good.

Eyes blazing, Merida turned around to defend herself. "Jack, they want me to marry a damn stranger. Why wouldn't I hate them?" Shut up Merida, just walk away, you don't need to get into an argument about family with Jack.

"They just want what's best for you!" He retorted.

With a clear eye roll Merida gestured at him while saying, "Oh, please. What do you know about families?" Oh shit no, why couldn't she just stop talking? Why couldn't she have said _anything but that?_

The room had decreased slowly in temperature up until now, but it plummeted quite suddenly. Now, I had always known Jack was powerful, I mean he was a guardian after all, and guardians were not chosen just on the basis of wanting to do good in the world. If that were the case then most of the spirits could be one; there was a reason there have only been five guardians called in the history of the world. I had heard stories of what Jack was capable of, what he had done. The raging, deadly blizzards he can make with the twitch of his hand, the ice crystals he creates can easily be turned into razor-sharp javelins, and I had heard of the recent destruction he brought down upon Pitch Black with the other guardians.

Jack is the embodiment of winter. Hell, not just the embodiment, he _is _winter. And I never quite understood what that meant…until now, and from the looks of it, Merida had just come to the same epiphany as I had. Her expression probably mirrored mine – eyes wide open in shock and slight fear after being enlightened, and breath held as we waited for the explosion we prayed would not come.

It was silent; the only sound being made was the crackling of the dying embers in the fire. Merida and Jack stood facing each other. A memory was suddenly brought to my mind of when I had let Toothless go after shooting him down. The way Toothless held my life in his hands and I knew that I was hanging on a precipice, that feeling of knowing I would either falling down, down, down; or somehow climbing back up. Toothless would, most likely, strike me down and kill me where I lay, or he would, for some reason, let me free. Now, that particular incident ended wonderfully. I kept my life, and eventually gained a best friend.

I feel almost exactly like I did then, like we were all hanging onto the edge of a cliff with only two outcomes. I just hope Jack reacts in a similar fashion to Toothless, and doesn't let his temper get away from him.

Finally, after an indeterminable amount of time had passed, Jack's stony expression gave way a little, "Unbelievable."

And with that he swiftly turned and left the room, the doors slamming shut behind him. I relaxed, only slightly though, because although a major crisis was averted, Merida had still crossed a major line.

I heard Merida make a breath and I turned my head to look at her. She had clearly gained back the bravery she normally possessed now that she was out of the furry that is Jack's presence.

She flipped her head around to look at me, waving her hands in the air in confusion she asked, "What the hell did I do now?"

I was slightly miffed at her, but at the same time I couldn't blame her for saying what she had. Merida had no knowledge that Jack had any family. Hell, she didn't even know that Jack was ever even human! I knew that out of Merida, Rapunzel, and I Jack had only opened up to me about his life and family when he was human. And I was also the only one out of us three that knew of Jack's awful period of isolation before he was asked to be the Guardian of Fun. So no, I would not fault her for her ignorance on the subject.

"It's a…sensitive topic for him." I managed to come up with that lame response; it was quite obvious that with Jack's reaction it was a sensitive topic.

Merida gave me a look that was very clearly interpreted as: _Thank you Hiccup for your stupid reasoning. You are quite simply a dumbass._

"No, Merida, what I mean is that Jack is not phased by most things in this world, but his family is one of the very few things that he is sensitive about." There, much better.

"Jack doesn't even have a family…Right?" Merida looked worried now, her brow furrowed slightly in doubt and she bit her lip.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. I wish Rapunzel was here. Rapunzel was so much better with words than I was; she would have handled this with much more tact and class than I could ever hope to. "Yes Merida he has a family. Two actually – the other guardians have as good as adopted him, and he also had a family when he was human."

She was starting to look slightly ill. "Wait, Jack was human? But…but then how is he now immortal?"

I fixed my gaze intently on her, it was important that she heeded what I was about to tell her. "I'm not the one who can answer that for you. You might want to go find Jack and have him explain about his past. It's not my story to tell." And it isn't, not only is it not my story to tell, but I would be seriously breaking the trust Jack had placed in me. The only way for Merida to truly fix what had broken was to learn the whole story, and only Jack could be the one to tell her that.

A moment of silence fell between us, and then Merida gave a slight nod, and swiftly turned to leave the room. Hopefully in search of Jack.

I just hoped she could understand, and then fix what had been broken.

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A/N: I am absolutely in love with the Big Four, and as I was on Tumblr I came across a gifset that inspired this story. The link to the gifset is at the bottom of this author's note, just remove the spaces. This is only a two-shot, so I'll post the second chapter sometime in the next few days or so. Hope you like it!

lostiel. tumbler post/ 45521978262


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